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Hannah vs Hannes

American parents have registered 466,406 Hannahs since 1880, against 37 Hanneses. Hannah is still ahead, with 3,973 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Hannah against Hannes, 1880 to 2025 0 6k 12k 18k 24k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Hannah Hannes

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Hannah has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1880 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2011, when Hannah had 6,590 and Hannes had 7.

Side by side

  Hannah Hannes
Total US births 466,40637
Most in one year 23,1127
Babies in 2025 3,973under 5
Estimated living today 441,00040
Median age today 2414
Peak year 20002011
Best rank 2nd girls9,600th boys
Rank in 2025 56thunranked
First recorded 18802003
Girls / boys 465,685 / 7210 / 37

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Which name is older

Half of the Hannahs alive today are over 24; half the Hanneses are over 14. That is 10 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Hannah Hannes
England and Wales 68,07425
Austria 13,2193,128
Belgium 2,867896
Switzerland 1,844326
Italy 628761

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Hannah and Hannes.